I come from a "Yours, Mine, and Ours" family. Both of my parents, Richard Byron Lohman (1924-2004) and Charlotte Pauline (Hovick) Lohman (1925-2015) were previously married and widowed.
Dad was married in 1945 to Constance Marie Stoep (1925-1952), who died very suddenly of bulbar polio, leaving him with three children: Jeanne, Douglas, and Paul.
Meanwhile, Mom was married in 1950 to Rev. Warren Lowell Thompson (1922-1951), who died of a brain hemorrhage when she was four months pregnant with their first child, Charles.
Since I was a little kid, I've always felt an odd connection to both Connie and Warren, for without their tragic and premature deaths, I simple wouldn't have come into being. So my deep gratitude for life comes with it an awareness of the losses that made it possible.
At the celebration of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, my Dad similarly remarked: "I have mixed feelings about being grateful that I have lived this long, and that [Char and I] have had these years. Because I can’t be grateful that Connie and Warren... died prematurely before they had a chance at the full gift of life that God intends for everyone."
As the family historian, with the passing of my Mom in 2015, I inherited all the old photos and documents from these four people and their three marriages. Among them were the photo albums that chronicle the early lives of Connie and Warren.
Telling and preserving the stories of my family on this blog would be incomplete without including the lives of these two pivotal people. Sadly, few stories still live on. Only my sister Jeanne has dim memories of her birth mother, Connie. The rest of my siblings were too young. And just about everyone else who knew them are now gone. So reconstructing their lives will have to rely heavily on these precious photos and documents, and whatever public records that I can find. But, over time, I will endeavor to tell about and honor their lives as best I can.
So yes, ours is a "Yours, Mine, and Ours" family. However, my mom was always quick to add, "But really, we're just an OURS family."